Brentwood head coach Dennis King took his squad to the Class AAA state title game.

Losing in a state championship game usually leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

That was not the case with the Brentwood boys basketball team this season.

The Bruins advanced to the Class AAA state title game for the first time and almost pulled off a huge upset over powerful Hamilton before dropping a 65-62 heartbreaker.

“What came out of that loss was such a sense of accomplishment,” said longtime Brentwood coach Dennis King, who is The Tennessean’s Boys Basketball Coach of the Year. “We kept our heads up. It was amazing how that touched the community. We’re still getting positive feedback about that.

Brentwood trailed by 15 points in the fourth quarter but came storming back and actually took the lead in the final minute.

The Bruins ended the season winning nine of its last 11 games and finished 30-7. The two losses in that stretch were the Region 6-AAA title game and the state championship.

“Having lost in the region finals put us in a sequence of games that proved to be beneficial,” said King, Brentwood’s coach since 1984, minus a four-year hiatus. “If we would have won the region finals, we would have played Hamilton on Wednesday morning (state quarterfinals), instead of Saturday night. It might have been a lot different.”

Brentwood’s motto this season was “3XC.”

“That means ‘third time’s a charm,'” said King, a 42-year coaching veteran whose squad had reached the AAA semis in 2013 and ’14. “The guys bought into it and believed in it. (Experience) had a major part in our success. We were 42 seconds from winning a state championship.”